Anton van Beek, John Martin and Steve Kirkham take a critical look at some of the latest cinema, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and streaming releases...

THE GREEN KNIGHT: LIMITED EDITION STEELBOOK (2021) 4K UHD, Out now, Entertainment in Video, Cert: 15

★★★★

Even if Guy Ritchie’s medieval stinker King Arthur: Legend of the Sword made you swear off Arthurian movies forever, you should still make time for this writer-director David Lowery’s epic historical fantasy. Based on the 14th Century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the film stars Dev Patel as King Arthur’s headstrong nephew Gawain who is celebrating with the King and his knights one Christmas morning when the mysterious Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) barges into Arthur’s court and issues a challenge. Anybody who fights him in single combat and lands the first blow will win his great axe. However, the following Christmas the winner must seek him out and allow the Green Knight to repay the blow in kind.

Seeing it as a route to knighthood, Gawain volunteers and is given Excalibur to use by his uncle. When the Green Knight simply kneels before him head bowed, however, the reckless Gawain decapitates him with a single blow. Which would probably have been fine, if the Green Knight didn’t then stand back up, put his head back on his shoulders and - before departing - remind Gawain that he must come see him in a year’s time so he can return the favour.

Skip forward a year and - armed with his prize from the duel and a magical girdle made by his mother (Sarita Choudhury) that she claims will prevent any harm coming to him as long as he wears it -Gawain heads out on a quest to keep his word and find the Green Knight; a journey that proves as every bit as strange and nightmarish as the promised fate that awaits him at its end.

Where the original poem is a fairly straightforward tale of tested chivalry and virtue, David Lowery’s update is a rather more existential affair. But even if Lowery’s film is a more enigmatic affair thanks to the changes made to the story, the fact that it’s full meaning may not be immediately apparent on first viewing are no problem, as the sumptuous visuals he crafts make repeat viewings entirely welcome. Make no mistake, this Green Knight is an absolute stunner. And even if you never entirely make heads or tails out of the point the film is trying to make, the journey it takes you on is utterly absorbing, populated by strange characters and unexpected events involving talking foxes, headless ghosts and alternate histories.

Beautiful, beguiling and ever so slightly baffling, The Green Knight thoroughly deserves a place alongside Lancelot du Lac (1974), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Excalibur (1981) at the round table of Arthurian cinematic greats.

Extras: Practitioners of Magic: Visual Effects (15 mins) looks at the creation of the film’s VFX, from its more fantastical characters to the superb digital matte paintings. Illuminating Technique: Title Design (eight mins) is an unexpectedly interesting chat with title designer Teddy Blanks about his approach to, well, designing the titles that appear on-screen at the start of each chapter. Finally, Boldest of Blood, Wildest of Heart: Making of The Green Knight (35 mins) is a better-than-usual look at the overall production, with plenty of insightful interviews accompanying the behind-the-scenes footage.

AvB

CHIP ’N’ DALE: RESCUE RANGERS (2022) Disney+ Out now. Disney. Cert: 9+

★★★★

Having caused problems for Disney stalwarts Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Pluto across a series of shorts made between 1943 and 1956, cartoon chipmunks Chip and Dale finally graduated to their own TV series with 1989’s Chip ’n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers. Running for 65 episodes across three seasons, the show saw the diminutive duo running a detective agency with the aid of their friends Gadget Hackwrench, Monterey Jack and Zipper. And now they’re back with a $70million Disney+ movie of their very own…

The brainchild of The Lonely Island comedy trio Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone, the Chip ’n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers movie is an explicitly self-referential animated-live-action hybrid, a sort of 21st Century Who Framed Roger Rabbit if you will (fittingly, as Chip and Dale were originally set to cameo in that 1988 hit, before the scene in question was dropped). And even if it doesn’t quite hit the same heights as the Robert Zemeckis smash, Chip ’n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers is still a whole heap of cheeky, meta-movie fun.